So for my Mechanical Engineering Group Project 4 research course (Semester 1 2016/2017 at the University of Edinburgh), I was in a group assigned the project of developing a test bed suitable for testing small marine diesel engines.

The overall group project was aiming to develop a theoretical design and feasability report for a small marine diesel engine such as Yanmar 1GM10, or YSM8 specification – generally therefore single cylinder, 4 stroke, pre-swirl chamber Diesel engines. No budget is given, and the test bed would theoretically be implemented for teaching purposes at the University of Edinburgh Mechanical Engineering Teaching Laboratory.

My component of this project was to develop the design for the analysis of air flow, fuel flow, and pressure studies, which I generally referred to under the generic term of “engine flow measurements“, primarily to differentiate between the power measurements being taken by other members of the group.

I’m going to be honest, there was a lot of conflict involved in this project and I did not enjoy it as a result, but it did give me a lot of respect for certain members of staff who dealt with the situations incredibly.

The conflict did however also terrify me into overworking on this, so as to give minimal, if any, opportunity for anyone to possibly find faults with my contributions. I wanted to get the whole thing over and done with but equally was willing to go to lengths to avoid any chance of anyone having anything to use against me. And besides, I take pride in doing any work to the best of my ability, and it would have felt like defeat to just let things slide.